Greetings to everyone from the Texas AFL-CIO in downtown Austin, Texas! BOR is coming to you tonight from the joint watch party hosted by the Travis County Democratic Party, Organizing for America-Texas, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and us! We've got a full house here tonight, and we're excited to be joined by a number of candidates, elected officials, and great progressive activists.
Rather than try to live-blog it all ourselves, we're using CoverItLive to capture all of the tweets from the event.
Want to join in? Use the hashtag #SOTUatx and your Tweet will show up in the feed below. Not on Twitter? Comment in the comment box and we'll approve them.
Want to join in? Use the hashtag #SOTUatx and your Tweet will show up in the feed below. Not on Twitter? Comment in the comment box and we'll approve them.
Barack Obama's first TV ad of the election cycle highlights his record on ethics and energy policy. Despite Republican claims to the contrary, his record is extremely strong in these areas:
Over the last four years, US dependence on foreign oil has dipped below 50% of our total consumption for the first time this century.
US natural gas production has skyrocketed to historic levels.
Investment in sustainable energy research has created 2.7 million jobs under this administration.
Unlike certain former Presidents, Obama has not been a lackey of the oil and gas industry, and has taken strong steps to ensure offshore drilling is safe in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and most recently shut down the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline
Watch the ad for yourself here:
For more on Obama’s energy record check out whitehouse.gov
Labor unions and working Americans scored a big victory this week when President Barack Obama used recess appointments to fill three vacancies on the National Labor Review Board. The NLRB is the independent governmental agency that conducts elections for labor union representation and addresses unfair labor situations. The three vacancies filled by Obama enable the board to resume issuing decisions on labor-related issues. The positions had been vacant since the Bush administration, as Republicans threatened to filibuster Obama's nominees. In the meantime, the Supreme Court ruled that decisions by the remaining two members were invalid due to lack of a quorum.
Well, not anymore! In addition to his recess appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Obama has filled the three NLRB vacancies. To give more context on this situation, BOR invited René Lara & Ed Sills from the Texas AFL-CIO to explain the significance of these appointments.
Obama's Recess Appointments Send Some Bullies a Message
By René Lara & Ed Sills, Texas AFL-CIO
President Obama's aggressive decision this week to make recess appointments after Republicans signaled they would confirm no one, no matter how qualified, to important posts, follows through on his warning in 2008 that his opponents should not bring a knife to a gunfight.
The president's recess-appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three labor law experts to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to re-establish a quorum at that agency acknowledged that the White House had no option but to take on forces that seek to stifle the act of governing.
Seen in full context, the election of Obama in 2008 was followed by a level of partisan behavior by Republicans that is unprecedented in our lifetimes. We would readily concede that no minority party gives any president a free ride, but it has been a very long time since a minority party behaved with the utter lack of nuance we have witnessed in the last three years.
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, baldly declared that the major goal for his party, rather than accomplish any intrinsic good for Americans, was to defeat Obama in 2012. And Republicans have validated McConnell's view time and again. Even after the 2008 election had provided the clearest mandate a Democratic president had received since the days of President Johnson, Republican senators systematically used the filibuster to stop legislation and appointments that had clear majority support. The shut-down strategy paid off, at least temporarily, in the 2010 elections, when the economy swooned in the aftermath of the Bush-era recession and Republicans were able to elevate normal minority party gains to historic proportions.
Democrats are no innocents in the partisan wars. But the GOP emphasis on "voter ID" laws and partisan attacks on labor unions are in large part about partisanship. "Voter ID" laws, enacted with virtually no Democratic support, have become a national GOP strategy aimed at doing what poll taxes and literacy tests used to accomplish for white majorities - knocking away percentages of the opposition vote.
The raw partisanship at work in the nation's capital permeates assaults on the NLRB. Attempts to enact union-bashing legislation in New Hampshire, Indiana and other venues seek to tamp down the opposition vote from union quarters. Obama's appointments to the NLRB send a strong signal to Republicans and their business constituency. After all, this is the government agency that is supposed to protect workers who want to form a union to negotiate a contract with their employer. For years that agency has been rendered toothless by laws that allow employers to scare employees into voting against forming a union.
The dismay displayed by Republicans this week over Obama's recess appointments may have more to do with his decision to take on bullies than with the substance of the appointment. But if Obama has to punch a bully, he chose a good place to hit him. The office of the presidency is not without power even against the most recalcitrant Congress or the "trusts" that Teddy Roosevelt busted a century ago.
Obama's patience has finally worn thin, and that's a good thing.
Lara is the Director of Legislation/Politics at the Texas AFL-CIO. Sills is Communications Director at the Texas AFL-CIO.
At this point there have probably been more news articles written about the Iowa Caucus than there were caucus-goers supporting Mitt Romney. (Definitely more than voted for Jon Huntsman, amirite?) So rather than add to the pile, here's a round-up of some of the more interesting post-Iowa analysis.
First, up the social scientists. Over at Pew Research Center, there's a good post on "Six Small but Significant Iowa Indicators." They write:
Romney Gets 1% of "True Conservative" Voters. A quarter of Iowa caucus voters said the most important candidate quality was that they be a "true conservative." Among these voters, just 1% supported Romney; 37% backed Paul and 36% supported Santorum.
More Independents. Independents comprised nearly a quarter (23%) of GOP caucus voters, up from 13% four years ago. As was the case in 2008, roughly six-in-ten caucus voters were white evangelicals.
Republicans Split Their Votes. Three-quarters of caucus voters were Republicans and they split their votes almost evenly between Santorum (29%) and Romney (27%). Paul drew a sizable plurality (43%) among self-described independents.
The bad news for Romney (and good news for Obama!) is that he still can't land the right-wingers -- if he can't motivate the base, that's bad news for him come November, should he win the nomination. Clearly, if Romney is to be replaced with a "real" conservative, the splintered right wing voting bloc will have to unite behind a not-Mitt for good. Santorum's impressive caucus results may make him the most likely choice, except for, you know, that whole frothy fecal matter thing.
Over at Business Insider there's some interesting analysis suggesting that Ron Paul may actually have won the Iowa Caucuses. Why? He may have organized the most delegates. They report:
Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates - the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding - they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose.
Takes me back to 2008, begging people not to leave our over-crowded elementary school auditorium while we waited for everyone to sign in. Depending on how long this contest drags out, Paul's delegate-winning strategy may be a factor when the RNC convenes in Tampa. If they pursue this organization, the odds are that Paul will only increase his delegate share, as other also-ran supporters stop bothering with the county, district, and state convention process.
File this next one under "not ready for prime time": TechPresident reports that Santorum's website crashed for 20 minutes last night. The campaign also failed to send a fundraising email right away to capitalize on the results. TechPrez also reviews GOP contenders' websites to see who updated their pages:
Rep. Ron Paul's campaign website still leads with a how-to on caucusing in Iowa; the best real estate on Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign home page on Wednesday was devoted to selling her book. In the first two of four slides rotating in pride of place on Romney's site, the former Massachusetts governor's campaign emphasized the Iowa victory and a contest in which one lucky campaign donor will spend New Hampshire election night with his team - both of which came with a fund-raising ask. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is "re-evaluating" his campaign after a lackluster performance in Iowa, also has a website that doesn't look to have been updated since last night.
Meanwhile, back here in Texas, Jason Stanford says Perry has no one to blame but Perry himself:
Perry's untethered arrogance is the only logical explanation for how a skilled politician flopped so badly as a presidential candidate. In Texas, his campaign team innovated new ways of polling and imposed a scientific rigor on paid communication unheard of at the state level. Strategically, his campaigns minimized risk and but were bold in seizing opportunity where others saw threats. In 2006, he turned a backlash on lax immigration policies into a talking point on border security. In 2009, he came from way behind against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by co-opting the Tea Party movement when no other politician would go near it.
None of those political traits showed up in the presidential campaign. Despite an extended exploratory phase this summer, his team did not do the quiet, hard work of a campaign: no polling, no self-research, and no debate prep. Perry's hubris blinded him into giving too much credit to the evangelical supplicants who promised to anoint him as the anti-Romney as soon as he entered the race. His campaign seemed like all he and his consultants did was sit around and tell each other how great it was going to be. No one ever bothered to get ready for the actual campaign.
Got any links you want to share about Iowa? Post 'em in the comments. Otherwise, it's onward to New Hampshire (next Tuesday, Janaury 10), South Carolina (Jan. 21), Florida (Jan. 31) and Nevada! (Feb. 4). Byaaaargh!!
As readers from Iowa and every other state in the nation clicked over to the paper to track caucus results, they were greeted with a banner reading "The Republican Candidates are leaving Iowa. But their terrible policies are here to stay." The left banner also points out how extreme and out of touch the GOP's platform is with regular Americans. "The Republican Plan" reads "hundreds of thousands of tax cuts for millionaires at the expense of the middle class," "go back to letting Wall Street write its own rules," and "send our troops back to Iraq." In other words, George W. Bush 2.0 but now with an angry Tea Party and Republican Congress to exacerbate the bad policies.
The ads are a sharp reminder of what's at stake in November: a chance to keep moving forward with Obama, or go back to the failed policies of the past. While the Republican candidates and most of the mainstream media left Iowa today, Barack Obama's team is still there on the ground organizing supporters.
Last night, that organization was evident as about 25,000 Iowans came out to caucus for Obama, even though his repeat win in the Hawkeye State was assured. Caucus attendees learned how to get involved with the campaign, and will immediately get plugged into an operation that's singularly focused on winning in November. To put the Democratic turnout in perspective, Romney himself only managed to gin up 30,000 votes after organizing non-stop in Iowa for years--and his primary is supposed to be the exciting one this cycle!
Now, granted, that 25,000 is a fraction of the 239,000 Democrats that caucused in Iowa in 2008. However, it's an impressive retention rate, and an illustration of Obama's ground game hard at work. More importantly, Democrats' 2008 turnout numbers dwarf the 120,000 Republicans who turned up last night. And that's an inflated number anyways, since only 75% of the caucus goers were self-identified Republicans. Ron Paul pulled a lot of Independents and you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself Democrats in for him.
Of anyone running, it looks like Barack Obama's got the most momentum coming out of Iowa.
It's about the Democratic Iowa Caucus! Tricked you!
While the mouth-breathers, knuckle-draggers and Santorum frothers are gathering to choose their preferred GOP Nopeful tonight, Democrats are also caucusing in Iowa to elect delegates to their county conventions, and vote on resolutions and party platform planks.
Watching the Republicans work to win over a small pool of very old, very white, very male Iowans it's not hard to remember that just four years ago, Democrats were working hard in Iowa as well, as supporters of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards worked down to the wire to win the first caucus.
This morning, former Iowa Caucus Director for Barack Obama and now Battleground States Director Mitch Stewart reminded us of the process that for Democrats resulted in taking back the White House back in 2008. Stewart emailed out a video that Obama prepared for Iowa voters on the eve of his own stunning landslide in the caucuses. In it, Obama lays out many of his campaign promises, promises he has largely made good on during his first term. It's worth watching:
Now, four years after that video, Obama has brought our troops home from Iraq, passed comprehensive health insurance reform that caps insurance company profits and sets us on a path to real universal health care, and despite a hostile Congress still managed to cut taxes for working people, repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, and implement a number of consumer protections that prevent normal Americans from getting completely screwed by their banks.
Of course, the Republicans running around Iowa right now want to undo all of this progress. They all want to repeal Obama's health insurance reforms, so that insurance companies can come between you and your doctor. Romney even said wants to keep 30,000 troops in Iraq. The fact is, while Obama hasn't been perfect, he's done a pretty good job with the circumstances he was handed. Meanwhile, the roster of GOP Nopefuls want to take us back to the 18th Century.
Tomorrow, the Republicans will take their shitshow on the road to New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada. Meanwhile, Barack Obama will still have foot soldiers on the ground in Iowa working to organize supporters for November. Obama for America has eight offices up and running across the state, more than any Republican candidate. This effort was profiled in a great New York Times video about the best organized candidate in Iowa, Barack Obama:
Keep up the good work, Iowa organizers for Obama! That's the work that's going to matter in November. And Iowans, take heart: those crazy Republicans (not to mention the national media) will depart tomorrow, and largely ignore y'all for another four years. Enjoy the peace and quiet!
This week's video address from President Obama featured the First Lady as well, and served primarily as a holiday greeting. Here 'tis:
Whatever you are celebrating or recognizing this week and weekend, be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, solstice, cold weather, rain, the impending New Year, a day off from work, or the return of the NBA, from our rag-tag Burnt Orange Report to yours, we hope it's all you wished for.
Yesterday, we looked at a PPP poll that shows how lukewarm the general voting public is on a Rick Perry presidential bid, as he currently narrowly trails Obama. However, it's a different story here in Texas in a potential Republican primary, where Perry leads the rest of the GOP brigade right now. From the poll:
If Rick Perry ran for president, and the choices were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney, who would you most like to see as the nominee? Rick Perry 31%
Mitt Romney 15%
Michele Bachmann 11%
Sarah Palin 9%
Ron Paul 9%
Newt Gingrich 8%
Herman Cain 6%
Tim Pawlenty 2%
Dear God, Please, Someone Else/Not Sure 9%
According to PPP, Perry has surged into the lead since January, when they last ran this poll:
When PPP looked at Texas in January only 9% of Republicans said Perry was their top choice, putting him in 6th place overall and well behind Mike Huckabee's 24%. But Perry's shown a lot more interest in a bid since then, Huckabee's out of the picture, and Gingrich who was in second place at 17% in January has tanked. Perry has likely picked up a lot of the lost support of his fellow southern candidates in the race.
This seems to echo other national analysis I've read on the Republican primary field--essentially Perry is running strong in the South, but seems to be alienating northern / coastal Republicans.
If Perry were not to run, what then?
If Sarah Palin didn't run, and the choices were just Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney, who would you most like to see as the nominee? Michele Bachmann 19%
Herman Cain 10%
Newt Gingrich 13%
Jon Huntsman 5%
Ron Paul 12%
Tim Pawlenty 7%
Mitt Romney 21%
Seriously, Why Do I Have to Pick Between These Jokes/Not sure 13%
PPP sez:
Those numbers show what's becoming a pretty common pattern--Bachmann leads Romney 22-15 with the 'very conservative' voters who constitute the largest segment of the Republican electorate. But Romney's strength in the middle- leading Bachmann 19-9 with moderates and 21-13 with 'somewhat conservative' voters gives him the overall advantage.
It's an interesting contrast in electorates. A statewide poll shows Perry losing by 2 points in a General Election match-up with Obama (though the 8% of undecideds are pretty anti-Obama in general). In that poll, Perry has a gaping chasm of support from self-described "Independents," 62% of whom view him unfavorably. Yet he runs very strongly with the Republican base, a plurality of which are self-described "very conservative" individuals.
These results are somewhat akin to Nate Silver's great post on how Republican voters, both primary and general-election, are overwhelmingly very conservative, rather than the mix of independents and moderate Republicans we've seen in the past. It's worth a read.
In any case, while the majority of Texans love America too much to want to see Rick Perry to run for President, our Governor still enjoys strong support from the die-hard base here in Texas. That should be concern to all of us, especially if he starts to take hold with Republicans in the many early primary states he's been visiting.
As Rick Perry's name continues to be floated and polled for a potential 2012 Presidential bid, it's interesting to see that in a recent PPP poll of Texas, he fares extremely poorly in a General Election match-up against Barack Obama. Maybe because those of us who know him best think that sending him to his dreaded Washington would be the worst thing to happen to America since the last Texas Governor who won the job in a popular vote of Supreme Court justices.
Perry is almost as unpopular [as Obama in Texas]. Only 43% of voters approve of him with 52% giving him bad marks. Most striking in Perry's numbers is a horrible 33/62 standing with independents. He also has 21% of Republicans disapproving of him while only 12% of Democrats cross over to give him good marks. Perry may prove to be a strong Presidential candidate but his numbers in Texas are nothing to write home about.
It's because we know him to be an incompetent buffoon, incapable of governing. As a table, from PPP's survey of 796 Texas voters:
Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Rick Perry's job performance? Approve: 43%
Disapprove: 52%
Not sure: 4%
Do you think Rick Perry should run for President next year, or not? He should run: 33%
He should not: 59%
Not sure: 8%
If the candidates for President next year were Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Rick Perry, who would you vote for? Barack Obama: 47%
Rick Perry: 45%
Undecided: 8%
Perry's numbers are pulled down substantially by the 25% of McCain voters in 2008 who disapprove of Perry. 40% of McCain voters don't even think Perry should run. Only 78% of the McCain voters are ready to commit to voting for Rick Perry, with 11% picking Obama and 11% undecided. Interesting.
But don't get too excited yet. The undecideds may not know who they're voting for, but they aren't all that keen on Obama. PPP explains:
The vast majority of undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama is doing. For instance in the match up with Perry 88% of undecideds disapprove of Obama's job performance to only 8% who approve. If you allocate the undecided voters based on their assessment of Obama that shifts the numbers 7 points and puts Perry ahead by 5.
The base of support for a Perry Presidency, unsurprisingly, aligns itself strongly with support for secession. From the poll's crosstabs, the folks who most want Perry to run are those who most favor secession. Now, this sounds to me like a logical fallacy. "I want Perry to be President, but I don't want to be part of the United States." I guess they want him to be Supreme Leader of the United Counties of Texas, which he kind of is, but that isn't working out very well for the people of Texas. It's interesting to ponder: if he was elected President, would Perry try to use an Executive Order to kick Texas out of the union, and then resign to rule his homeland?
However, Perry isn't the strongest choice of the secessionists, who go 73% for the Governor of Texas. They back Ron Paul at a rate of 80% and Michele Bachmann at 77%. Interestingly, amongst those voters who just can't stand being Americans anymore, Obama does the best against Palin and Pawlenty, garnering 20% of the secessionist vote. I guess for all voters, there is always a bridge too far.
By the by, PPP mentions that Republican candidates seem to be overwhelmingly unpopular in their home states. Not only is Perry disliked here in Texas, so is Sarah Palin in Alaska, per the Alaska Dispatch. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. Texans also don't like Ron Paul very much, except for those who really, really like him, but they're probably too socially off-putting to generate much of a larger grassroots movement. Paul's at 30/46 favorable/unfavorable.
This, of course, is just the General Election match-up. Perry actually does very well in Republican primary polling in Texas, which we'll look at tomorrow.
Just in time for Independence Day, here's a patriotic nugget from a recent Public Policy Polling survey:
18% of voters think the state should secede, to 71% who are opposed to the idea with 11% unsure. ... With the 71% who oppose secession Obama leads Romney by 6, Paul by 12, Pawlenty, Cain, and Bachmann by 15, Palin by 17, and Perry by 19.
What's with the "Not Sure" secession demographic? You really not sure if you want to live in the Lord of the Flies scenario that Nation-of-Texas Republicans would create if left to their own devices?
Here's the results as a table, with the crosstabs of candidate favorability by pro-secessionists teased out:
Do you think Texas should secede from
the United States, or not? Texas should secede: 18%
It should not: 71%
Not sure: 11%
Approval/Disapproval of Candidates from
voters who want to Secede: Obama: 15/83
Bachmann: 62/17
Cain: 45/23
Palin: 61/28
Pawlenty: 27/31
Romney: 37/39
Paul: 48/25
Perry: 71/23
Perry's clearly the front runner amongst voters who want to leave the nation, rather than lead the nation, but Palin and Bachmann are hot on his heels. Interesting that the secessionistas are fairly lukewarm on Pawlenty and Romney, even though Romney runs strongest of all potential Republican nominees in Texas. Should he get the nomination, might a Medina-type run as a Third Party option in Texas for the Tea Party-style "patriots"?
Demographic change may make Texas winnable for Democrats in the long run but in the shorter term successfully encouraging the secessionists to stay at home would be a winning strategy.
In 2012, secessionists should consider voting on November 5 in order to fully demonstrate their independence from these ridiculous national election dates.
But hey, count me as of the many Texas voters who want to be a member of the union, and will happily celebrate our great United States of America tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am sure the secessionists will go to work despite the Federal holiday, and won't partake in parades, picnics, or family barbecues celebrating the birth of the nation they're so desperate to leave. Anything else would be downright hypocritical!
The base of support for a Perry Presidency, unsurprisingly, aligns itself strongly with support for secession. From the poll's crosstabs, the folks who most want Perry to run are those who most favor secession. Now, this sounds to me like a logical fallacy. "I want Perry to be President, but I don't want to be part of the United States." I guess they want him to be Supreme Leader of the United Counties of Texas, which he kind of is, but that isn't working out very well for the people of Texas. It's interesting to ponder: if he was elected President, would Perry try to use an Executive Order to kick Texas out of the union, and then resign to rule his homeland?
